Valuing Health Workers research

Our international policy and advocacy work 'Valuing Health Workers', aims to improve the quality of health worker recruitment, training and management, by identifying the issues that affect health worker motivation and morale. Here are some examples of the research we are doing:

Uganda

Patricia Thornton, a social researcher with 30 years experience led the research in Uganda in partnership with HEPS-Uganda (the Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development).

Patricia describes her approach to the research: “Health workers are ordinary men and women trying to cope in often difficult and challenging circumstances. But there are many negative comments about on low motivation and poor attitudes to clients. Health workers are seen as negligent or unethical even where the fault is with the health system. Users say health workers’ attitudes, behaviors and practices are barriers to health care.

“Policy makers and service users need to understand better what it is like being a health worker. Better understanding should lead to more harmony between users and health workers, and so improve access to health care”.

Patricia began her research in mid-2010 and hopes to publish her research in late 2011.

Cambodia

Emily Wooster, a former policy and campaigns manager, at Mind (the UK’s national association for mental health) has been leading the research in Cambodia. She is working in partnership with MEDiCAM, the umbrella organisation for NGOs working in health. Emily describes her research:

“The literature in Cambodia focused mainly on the impact of user fees, incentives for health workers and the impact of the Khmer Rouge regime on the development of health services… but remarkably health worker’s voices were absent from research and policy making.

“The Valuing Health Workers research in Cambodia will ask health workers themselves, what motivates them and how do they cope in challenging circumstances? We are doing this through qualitative research which aims to un-pack issues and come to a better understanding of problems. Hopefully this greater understanding can then help to generate practical and meaningful solutions”.

Emily began her research in mid 2010 and hopes to interview almost 100 frontline health workers and 40 management and national level stakeholders. She will complete her placement in September 2011 and hand over the project to a new volunteer.

She is aiming to complete her research by late 2011 and will stay on in Phnom Penh for another year to help MEDiCAM develop and implement a communications and advocacy strategy.

Malawi

VSO volunteers Ruth Dearnley and Darrell Imbert worked for over year on their research and began disseminating their report nationally in the summer 2010. Ruth supported VSO Malawi’s partner the Malawi Health Equity Network to lobby national stakeholders about the issues until March 2011:

“We recently presented the research to MPs from the Parliamentary Health Committee and numerous people from the Ministry of Health. One of the main findings from our research has been that the most neglected cadre of health workers are what are called health surveillance assistants (HSAs)”, said Emily.

HSA were originally set-up as a short-term solution to act as a link between district health offices and remote communities. There are now over 10,000 HSAs in Malawi – who receive only 8-10 weeks training.

“The general feeling from reports in the media and from the MPs… is that HSAs are not ‘real’s health workers so why do they need training? However MPs were convinced by our arguments that the reality is that HSAs are performing many of the duties of trained health workers.

“So we are working with VSO’s volunteer human resource management advisers to pilot some of our research recommendations around training in HR management, performance monitoring, management and supervision for HSAs”, she added.

For more information on our Valuing Health Workers campaign contact advocacy@vso.org.uk